Coconut Bread
Coconut Bread
Preheat oven 350 degrees.
Sift, then measure:
3 cups flour
Sift again with:
3 tsp baking powder
and sift more if you feel like it. Add:
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar (1/3 for not too sweet, more for sweeter.)
Separately, mix:
1 1/2 cups whole coconut milk
1 cup shredded coconut
4 tsp applesauce
Pour into mixture of dry stuff and mix with wooden spoon until just folded. Pour into pan and bake until done--50 minutes or so.
These tastes especially good if you get the crust kind of crunchy, but I'm not sure exactly what combination of time and temperature makes it more like that. Those who do more baking probably do.
Warning: coconut milk is exceptionally high in fat. I consider this stuff an occasional treat.
I used applesauce in place of the egg in the original recipe, since that was what I had.
I made fresh coconut milk and shredded coconut for this because I had the fresh coconuts and plenty of time. I haven't yet tried this with canned coconut milk and packaged shredded coconut, but I would expect it would still work. The shredded could even be left out--it's just easy to put some in when using a fresh one because its there.
To make fresh coconut milk:
Drain the "agua de coco" from the coconut by pounding something through two of the three eyes on the end of the coconut (we usually use a Phillips screwdriver). Add water if necessary to make two cups of liquid. Whack the coconut around the equator with a hammer (preferably on a hard surface) until it cracks open. Sometimes this takes ten whacks, sometimes fifty or more. It will eventually split into two halves. Dig out the coconut meat. I usually use a sharp knife to cut it into segments, and then pry the segments out of the shell. Shred the meat, the finer the better. The smallest part available on a cheese grater is usually good, but the coarse part isn't. (For this recipe, set aside a cup of the shredded meat to add directly to the batter. This cup doesn't have to be grated as finely as the rest.) Put the shredded meat in a saucepan with the two cups of liquid, and heat, stirring occasionally, stopping just BEFORE boiling. A little bubbling is okay, but boiling it makes the product worse. Let it cool. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the shredded meat a handful at a time in a cheesecloth or thin dishtowel, collecting the liquid. Also add any liquid left in the pan. That's the coconut milk! It took the flavor and the fat out of the coconut meat. You can even churn this stuff to make coconut butter. But for the bread above, just use it as is.
I found that the coco milk didn't keep very long, so I made the bread within a half day of making the milk. We had very poor refrigeration, though, so it may keep longer in a real fridge.
Enjoy!
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